Open letter to President Frohnmayer

We are deeply troubled by the document titled
"Five
Year Diversity Plan Draft".
We find the text frightening and offensive.
This plan is an
attempt to strictly control essentially all aspects of university life.
If implemented, even partially, this program will do immeasurable damage
to our university.

We are especially disturbed by (emphasis in the following added):

1). The Orwellian insertion of the undefined political notion "cultural
competency" into every aspect of administration, teaching, and
performance evaluation throughout the University. As just a few
examples:

a). evaluation criteria for 3rd year reviews, tenure, post-tenure
reviews, promotion, and raises will be changed to assess demonstrable
commitment to "cultural competency";

b). all instructional faculty will be expected to participate in ongoing
"cultural competency" professional development; "diversity training will
be incorporated in all
departmental and administrative unit training
with benchmarks for evaluation"; emphasis on "cultural competency" in
all faculty orientation programs;

c). annual assessment
of all officers of administration and classified
staff on matters of "cultural competency";

d). course requirements for all students will be expanded to include
"cultural competency".

2). The dramatic interference into the faculty search and recruitment
which, apart from violating academic freedom, will have a devastating
effect on the quality of research and teaching at the university.

a). The requirement for all academic units to develop 3-5 year hiring
plans which will be evaluated by the Equity and Diversity Committee.
All
requests for tenure track searches are to include an explanation of how
the new hire meets equity or diversity goals.

3). The spending of vast additional sums of money on diversity-related
bureaucracy, requirement that at a minimum the university has a vice
provost for equity and diversity as well as four assistant
vice-provosts, creation of a "Diversity Institute",
seven new funded centers and directors,
more special math and English classes reserved for minority students,
the creation of new departments of Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies,
a minor in Queer Studies, ... . The list goes on and on.

The document has been prepared in the atmosphere of secrecy---some
people cited in the Diversity Advisory Council on page 1 had no idea
about the contents of this document and have already repudiated it.

There are many other disturbing points. But it is already clear from the
above that many faculty will see the document as an attempt to create an
atmosphere of fear, hostility, and political intimidation throughout
every aspect of the University. Already, many of the best faculty are
talking about leaving. Many others will boycott these draconian measures
or will go for help to the legislature and the press. At a time when
salaries of state employees have been frozen because of budget problems
and morale on campus is already low, it is outrageous that the
university is spending millions on projects like this.

In order to avoid further strife we ask that the administration:

1). Withdraw the "Five Year Diversity Plan".

2). Make all the information related to the diversity programs open and
available to faculty members and the press. In particular, we want to
know the budgets of all diversity programs on campus,
including the moneys
used for recruitment, scholarships, salaries, funded committees, new
diversity administrators and sources of those moneys.
This information is essential for an informed faculty discussion
of future actions.